This invention relates generally to aircraft cockpit displays and more particularly, to methods and systems for controlling display of en-route maps on aircraft cockpit displays.
At least some known aircraft include cockpit displays that incorporate moving maps of areas traversed by the aircraft during flight. The moving maps include one or more segments of a route of intended travel of the aircraft over the area. Each segment is usually defined by waypoints marking the beginning and the end of the segment. The moving map may also include one or more aeronautical symbols positioned at predetermined locations on the moving map. Such symbols may be positioned at a specific location marking that location or may be positioned in a location that is merely convenient for displaying the information associated with the symbol. While traversing each segment, certain ones of the displayed aeronautical symbols may have no significance for that segment, but is used in conjunction with flight on other segments that are also displayed on the moving map. Such non-essential symbols to the current segment being traversed may add to information overload of the flight crew, for example, by tending to clutter the display with currently non-essential symbols, which compete with the flight crew's attention. However, removing such currently nonessential symbols from the display is not an option because while traversing other segments on the display, the symbols may hold relevance for those segments.